


10 Things about Scorpius Malfoy's Father

by Pie (potteresque_ire)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Book: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Gen, Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 15:56:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7321474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potteresque_ire/pseuds/Pie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>10 things about Draco (and Astoria) Malfoy as his son Scorpius grows up and gets ready for the world. Set in the years before the Epilogue and the events in Harry Potter & the Cursed Child. Follow-up to "10 things about Albus Potter's Dad".</p>
            </blockquote>





	10 Things about Scorpius Malfoy's Father

**Author's Note:**

> ***CURSED CHILD SPOILERS!*** I wrote this ficlet based on the spoilers from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in June 2016, without having watched the actual play or read the script book. Dreaming up the details of a story from its reviews/synopses (and comparing it with the actual work afterwards) has always been a strange hobby of mine :).

#### 10 Things about Scorpius Malfoy’s Father

  


1\. 

He didn’t shed a tear when he sat for his war trials. His eyes were dry when he moved out of Malfoy manor. Yet, within five minutes of the birth of Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, Draco was having a brawling contest with his newborn son. Maybe he was just happy. Or maybe, he saw the pale blond hair and and pointy nose that were so much like his own.

So much like a _Malfoy_ ’s.

  


2.

For six months, Draco was Scorpius’ caregiver. He couldn’t trust freed house elves to care for his son. He fed the baby, bathed him, changed his diapers and sang him lullabies. Then, he put his fast-asleep Scorpius in Astoria’s bed so that she could have her son close to her for a while, before the next round of medi-potions sent her into slumber again.

Those months were good to Draco. The war never entered his thoughts, not even once.

  


3.

Draco couldn’t tell a story to save his life. Ironic, he knew, he’d used to be good at it in Hogwarts—so good, in fact, that now he couldn’t play-act without remembering the terrible things he’d said and sounded, instead, like he’s giving a lecture or a scathing critique. Bedtime storytelling was therefore the first thing Astoria had taken over from him. She loved to read stories from Wizarding history—goblin wars, tales of different Wizarding communities and the like—and Scorpius, who had to be too young to understand a word, looked so spellbound that Draco suddenly feared his son _did_ understand. 

”He’ll hate us.” Draco confessed his worry to Astoria one day. “Our son will hate us when he knows his history.”

Astoria closed the book and looked up at him. “No,” she answered, her eyes bright as the sconces dimmed. “Our son will understand where we came from.”

  


4.

The Underground. Draco’s second life began on the platform in a Tube station. He was cursing his luck and the door that’d just closed three feet away from him when he saw her. She looked familiar even behind the smudgy train window and Draco took a mere second to recognize her as Daphne Greengrass’s sister. Their eyes met, and rather than looking away as former Slytherins had learned to do to each another, Astoria Greengrass smiled and gave Draco a tentative wave. 

The train sped away, and Draco Malfoy fell in love.

  


5.

Her second life came earlier. The patriarch and matriarch of the Greengrasses had first decided to move to Muggle London to avoid Ministry interrogations, and then, to never step out into the streets infested with Mudboods. Daphne locked herself in her room all day, crying, leaving Astoria to be the one Greengrass who must make peace with their new life. On the day Draco’d met her, she was heading to the grocer’s adjacent to the city library where Draco had been devouring Muggle cultural guides.

All this, of course, Draco learned much later. After their first encounter, Draco had stood on the same Tube platform every morning for a fortnight, waiting for Astoria to show up again. The station was inundated with commuters and Draco, worried that Astoria wouldn’t see him, began to sing “Weasley is our King” at the top of his voice.

It worked. A few Muggles also dropped pound notes at Draco’s feet while he’s singing.

Draco, like Astoria, was just trying to make peace. To make do.

  


6.

And they got so good at it that their fathers threatened to kick them out on the same day, for the same crime of falling in love with a “Muggle lover”. Draco and Astoria enjoyed a few rounds of snickering over fish and chips, at this accusation that’d befallen them when each was asking to marry, of all people, a pureblood from the sacred twenty-eight. They also knew that threats were exactly what they were—threats. Astoria was the Greengrasses’ link to the Muggle world; she was also chronically ill. Draco was the heir of the Malfoy fortune and the favorite target of Lucius’ ever-filling goblets.

But they took their chance and ran with it. They’d made peace with the past, made do with the present and now, they’re ready to make a future.

Merlin knew how long the clock would keep ticking for them. Especially for Astoria.

  


7.

The Rumor began in a quote box smaller than the caption of a Harry Potter photo in the _Prophet_ , a sentence about the Malfoys becoming impotent from Tom Riddle’s lingering Dark magic in the manor. The Greengrasses were behind it, Draco and Astoria surmised. They wanted to shame Draco into giving Astoria back.

That evening, Draco showed Astoria for the first time just how _impotent_ he was.

That same evening, Astoria showed Draco just how frail she really was. The passion, the adrenaline rush left a pale, sickly ghost in Draco’s sheets several hours later.

  


8.

They both knew that it was a trade—that Astoria was exchanging her own years for those Draco would find love and companionship through their son, Scorpius. Draco had not wanted that. What if Scorpius turned out to be just like him—a bully, a coward, a minion, a prodigal son who’d deserted his family for good?

When Scorpius turned three, Draco began to distance himself. He knew he did the right thing when Scorpius took more and more after his mother everyday. He smiled and waved at strangers the same way Astoria had smiled and waved at Draco on the train. He idolized Batilda Bagshot and was strangely fascinated by every factoid from the goblin wars. He left a tableful of breadcrumbs after he read in the kitchen and over-shared his sweets with their neighbours. He sang only the tunes Astoria had taught him by piano—she couldn’t hold a note—and none of the lullabies Draco had sung to him as a baby. 

But Draco still feared. For under all that Astoria, he still saw Draco lurking underneath and nothing was more fearsome, more glaring than Scorpius’ tendency to be a follower, to surrender to whatever came his way. He happily asked to join whatever games his schoolmates were playing and shrugged when they laughed him off for his bookishness. He read whatever he was handed and never asked for more than what Draco and Astoria could afford, which was sufficient but far from what Draco had had as a child….

All Scorpius needed was one bad leader—or one bad friend—and he could go astray.

  


9.

Draco tried hard to instill leader qualities in his son. He taught Scorpius to talk in measured, succinct diction, to leave out the “um..”s and “er…”s and the countless exclamations he's prone to make when excited. He taught him to stand with his back straight and shoulders firm, and keep his arms and hands relaxed but perfectly still. These lessons were laughably superficial and Draco was too aware of why—he, Scorpius’ father, had been the ultimate follower himself. That’s why he’d signed up to work for Tom Riddle. That’s what propelled him as a bully to harp the same insults about bloodlines and wealth, spoon-fed to him by his elders, over and over again.. 

That’s how he’d made himself Draco Malfoy.

Scorpius spent each lesson in misery, which, by Scorpius’ standards, meant smiling only half of the time and abbreviating the stories he insisted on telling his dad by five minutes tops. These “Scorpius standards” were stubbornly held—far more stubbornly than his meek mannerisms suggested—heedless of Draco’s reticence or sternness for the day. The lessons inevitably ended with Draco breaking down with a sigh (and a smile) and Scorpius’ victorious giggle-fit as he hopped away. Still, Draco thought he deserved an award for giving the only lessons his son wasn’t dying to attend. Hogwarts had been Scorpius’ dream. He would get to live in her library and spend seven years with the same schoolmates. Draco and Astoria had moved him from Muggle school to Muggle school, for fear of unfriendly wizards in the midst who might use the Rumor against him.

“Let Scorpius be himself, at least for the summer?” Astoria asked as she had every summer before, cupping Draco’s face with her hands. This time, more words followed. “Hogwarts won’t be a kind place to him. He’ll need friends there, not followers.” 

She turned to the small table beside her bed, where the acceptance letter sat on top of the _Prophet_ ’s social pages. Adjacent to yet another photo of Harry Potter and almost as big this time was the title: _Is a certain pureblood child the descendent of You-Know-Who?_ The next line, in slightly smaller fonts, read: _Will this cursed child be attending Hogwarts with your children this year?_

Draco gritted his teeth and jabbed his wand at the newspaper, sparing Potter’s face for once. 

Scorpius showed up at that moment with tea for his mum. When he caught sight of the paper, he folded it up without so much as a frown, like he didn’t see the words, like he wasn’t the speed reader that he was, and clipped it in inside the Hogwarts envelope. 

“I’m pinning this in my room.” He picked up the letter and waved it at them, beaming, and Draco realized his son was perfectly aware of the prejudices out there, and the hurt that must be awaiting him at Hogwarts.

And being Scorpius, he’d already made peace with them, even before it happened to him. 

  


10.

When Draco lifted Astoria out of bed on September 1st, she whispered in his ear that he, Draco Malfoy, was the light of her life. “Don’t you ever forget that,” she added.

On Platform 9 3/4, everyone—save for the Potters and Weasleys—were decidedly _not_ looking at them. But the many pairs of eyes flitting to Scorpius told Draco that they’d already warned their children to stay away from his son. With one effortless push, the Rumor had shoved the Malfoys back into the Dark.

Astoria leaned against Draco. She could barely stand even with the help of magic but her gaunt face was glowing with such pride, such love. _You’re the light of my life._ If Draco could play Light for one person in the world and that person was Astoria, that’s good enough for him. Astoria was Draco’s light too. He’d been too stunned to tell her this morning. 

And Scorpius would be a shining light on his own. He’s so much like his mother.

“Don’t forget your sweets,” Astoria patted her pocket as Scorpius put on his rucksack. When Scorpius turned to Draco, Draco pulled out the box he’d packed the night before. 

“Spares. For emergencies.”

Scorpius smiled at the sweets inside. “I promise I’ll make friends with them too, Dad,” he whispered.

Draco nodded. Scorpius stowed the box in the trunk, side by side with his crup-eared copy of _History of Magic_. He boarded the train early, his eyes lingering on his parents. Astoria waved and Draco stood like a shadow behind her, wanting his son to remember them as one now that he’s leaving the shelter they’d built for him, meager as it was, and speeding towards the unknown.

 _Just promise me one thing, Scorpius. Promise me that you’ll always find peace._

_Peace in what you’ll face._

_Peace In who you are._

  
  
  
  



End file.
